Candice Warner opens up on her family’s hellish ordeal

DAVID Warner’s wife Candice says she blames herself for his fall from grace and has opened up on the family’s hellish ordeal.

CANDICE Warner has given a frank insight into the how the ball tampering scandal has affected husband David and their young family.

Sacked vice-captain David Warner, who was banned for 12 months by Cricket Australia after being accused of masterminding a ploy to scuff the ball illegally in the third Test between Australia and South Africa in Cape Town, broke down during Saturday’s press conference.

Warner became particularly emotional while apologising to wife Candice and the couple’s two young children for “putting you through this”.

Warner was widely criticised for not answering questions directly on Saturday. It’s understood the opener was advised to take that approach because there is a strong chance he will take his code-of-conduct charge to a formal hearing.

“I"m sure there were things he wanted to say but he just couldn’t get it out. He is hurting. He is seriously, seriously struggling and he’s not in a great headspace,” Candice Warner told The Sunday Telegraph.

“He’s just such an emotional wreck.

“I feel like it’s all my fault and it’s killing me — it’s absolutely killing me.

“I haven’t been much of a support because I’ve been a wreck. I’m really not well.

“If people could understand ... if they could just sympathise just slightly with the month that he’s had.”

Candice made it clear there was no excuse for her husband’s mistake, but noted their family had endured a tough month in South Africa.

Read: Shattered Warner breaks down

Read ‘You could hear her weeping’

Candice was in tears during her husband’s emotional press conference on Saturday.

Read: Drunken mistake that sparked Candice attacks

Both of them were targeted with vulgar and personal abuse that centred on Candice’s tryst with rugby star Sonny Bill Williams at a Sydney hotel over 10 years ago, long before she met Warner.

Warner raged in the staircase at a comment Proteas keeper Quinton de Kock made about his wife during the first Test in Durban, while Cricket South Africa officials overruled venue security at the second Test and ordered them to allow fans wearing Williams masks into the ground.

Those two officials were then photographed smiling as they posed alongside spectators wearing those masks.

Coach Darren Lehmann described fan behaviour in the third Test as “disgraceful” and the worst he’s ever witnessed in the sport after Warner was abused by a fan when he was heading up the race back to the dressing room after being dismissed.

“Seeing them wearing the masks. To have people staring and pointing and laughing at me, to have the signs, to have, you know, the songs made up about me — I would have to sit there and cop that,” Candice Warner said.

“Dave would come home from the game and see me in tears in the bedroom, and the girls just looking at their mum.

“He had to just cope with it.

“Coming home today I walked into the room and I was in tears and our daughters were so upset. They were like, ‘Why you crying, Mummy?’

“I had to make an excuse ... it’s really hard to explain to kids and they don’t understand.”

The Warners are going through hell.